Very nice high-resolution camera, but the compression ratio sort of negates the HD. I understand the desire/need to keep the bandwidth down, but a lower resolution camera with less compression could provide a better image at about the same bandwidth, one where detail is not lost due to the blending of pixels in the compression algorithm.

I do like the addition of sound. But I sometimes have the window open and then get distracted and forget it is running... then I hear a train horn and can't figure out where it is coming from! Left me totally befuddled earlier this morning! But once I figured it out, I quickly reverted to the viewing window and watched a train! FUN. THANKS!

I will be doing some measuring on Google Earth to determine perspective distances between some landmarks so I can measure the speed of trains in the area. So far, timing cars of known length I have seen a train headed to Aurora at close to 35 MPH this morning and just now a UP bound for Clinton at about 25 MPH.

I just tried it and it loaded both automatically and quickly. Waited a breathless two minutes and I heard the horn. BNSF coming from SW with what I think was an SD70 on the head.

Some people may need to update media or flash players.

I would place the experience on a par with the Norfolk cam, except that the sound is a welcome enhancement. Haven't yet compared the two after dark. The Norfolk cam gets the benefit of proximal street lighting.

Great to see the webcam back and improved. I had to wait 3 full minutes after I opened it for a train (UP west, mixed freight) to appear. One thing that could be improved is if the microphone for the sound could be moved closer to the speakers that carry the radio feeds - but that might mean picking up all the conversations in the deer stand itself, some of which can be pretty inane (not to mention the crying babies).

Some of us geezers remember the old railfan park in Rochelle which was right at the diamond crossing on the right hand corner of the screen near a utility pole. Sometimes you still see guys park there for the improved camera angles at certain times of day. There was parking, a picnic table, a garbage can, and someone planted flowers. The trains were BN and C&NW. At the time I thought it was the last word in friendly railfan treatment! Some guys who parked there had speakers attached to their scanners, too. The area of the current railroad park was somewhat brushy and overgrown, and the folks were still living in their house if memory serves. An interchange track from BN to UP was right in front of us, rarely used (and gone now) but sometimes used for MOW and car setouts at the time.

Some years ago the Chicago & North Western Historical Society held its annual meet in Rochelle -- it was a great meeting -- and one pleasant night after the last slide show someone said, let's go to the railroad park. By that time it was probably 10:30 pm so the cameras were left at home. Daytime railfanning is great there but at night the action was nonstop and just incredible. I have never seen the volume of trains I did that night from 10:30 pm to about 1 am.

Semper V, both railroads allow their trains to cross the diamonds at 35 m.p.h. Some UP trains have a tendency to go more slowly because of the proximity of Global 3 (first train I saw on the new cam was an eastbound on UP--moving slowly but had picked up appreciably by the time it was done crossing).

Most of the cameras (multiple brands) that I have in my ad-hoc home video surveillance system have an auto-focus feature, but they also have a method of turning that feature off and setting the focal distance manually. I set them to infinity and they work well... Anything over 15 ft. is essentially infinity!

Well... they work fine until there is a power glitch and then they reset to autofocus ON, and it drives my motion detection software nuts as the cameras hunt for focus at night, until I manually turn autofocus off again.

Finally got a chance to "daylight" the cam and, of course, two MW guys are inspecting the diamonds. No jeweler's loupe needed there, but no trains either.

Also saw a lot of foraging birds in the BNSF ROW near the picnic area; I guess the grain hoppers are leaking a little bit. That sort of reminded me of the squirrel activity along the BNSF branch running alongside the I-215 route across from March AFB (when it was still an AFB).

Did hear a train last night and saw the lights of the DP unit on the tail end go by on UP. Those wheels definitely make a racket going over the diamonds, don't they.

Ah, yes, Chuck, wheels going over any frog make a noticeable noise. When I lived in Wesson, Mississippi, the IC was right across the street in front of my house--with a crossover between the two mains there. If I wanted to, I could count the cars on a train that went by during the night. Sad to say, there is only one track there now.

I love the fact that there's audio now- I can leave a tab open monitoring the webcam and go off and do other things. Train horns alert me to impending traffic, and the loss of all sound alerts me to the need to go hit the play arrow again. Thanks to that, I was able to catch the following very interesting sequence of events this morning:

Southbound tank train on BNSF Track 2 (?, furthest from the camera).

As soon as he cleared, heard horns blowing for grade crossing, assumed to be on UP, but nothing appears, and background noise returns to normal.

As soon as he clears, I hear two shorts on a train horn, and not one but TWO eastbounds come into view on UP. The nearest on Track 2 is an intermodal with two engines, the second being the Olympic 2012 unit, and the other a grain train (near as I could tell with the intermodal blocking the view) with two engines as well. They both ran neck-and-neck until they were gone; I'm assuming they're still racing each other into Chicago.

Immediately after they cleared, another southbound BNSF train comes through.

Have caught some eastbound UP intermodals that come in pretty slow, so I am guessing they have just left the yard to the east. A couple of them gained speed during the passing. Pretty windy today, though. The visitors' clothing and the trees are quite in motion.

Brian, I agree on the sound helping out. Last night it was quiet enough that I could hear the hum of an air conditioner somewhere nearby.

Global III is approximately 2000' southwest of the diamonds, just out of sight along the UP behind the trees to the left. I think there's probably some power equipment somewhere in the field of view or on the power poles that's contributing the noise- either that, or a window air unit in one of the homes close by.

Hit a dry spell this afternoon. No big deal for me - I was home and watching on my tablet (worked great, by the way). I kinda felt for that family that was hanging out at the park, though. I don't know if they left, or were just off-camera, when a BNSF and three UP trains (including an intermodal and a coal train at the same time) came through...

There is, indeed, a plant just to the east of the camera's location. I don't remember hearing it 'hum', though. Global III is SW of the camera. But it is far enough away to be an unlikely source of a humming. I hear a 'buzzing' noise in my feed. Sounds like feedback. Or an electronic sourced noise from the camera itself.